Landry-French chosen to manage public safety project

By Michael Kelley Staff Writer

The proposal for a new public safety building was vetted and designed by a group for Scarborough residents with the help of Boston-based Context Architecture and now, a little more than three months after voters approved a $19.5 million bond for the project, the new facility will be constructed by a Scarborough firm.

This month, Landry-French Construction on Pleasant Hill Road, was chosen as the construction manager for the new 53,000-square-foot facility, which will provide updated space for the police, fire and emergency medical services departments on a piece of town-owned land next to town hall.

Town Manager Tom Hall said eight firms responded to an early December request for proposals, a process in which interested firms provide cost estimates, as well as financials, examples of other work, information about their leadership team and their technical capabilities for completing the project. Hall said each of the firms were rated on a series of criteria through which the ad hoc public safety complex building committee’s executive committee, made up of Assistant Town Manager Larissa Crockett, Scarborough Fire Chief B. Michael Thurlow, Scarborough Police Chief Robbie Moulton, construction professional Rocco Risbara and Hall, whittled the list down to four firms (Consigli Construction, PC Construction and Wright-Ryan Construction, all of Portland and Landry-French).

That, Hall said, allowed the group to “get to know who they are, what their skill sets were and share what we perceived as the unique challenges of the project.” Hall said everyone on the committee agreed each was “capable of building the building.”

The list was then pared down to just two, Landry-French Construction and PC Construction, but two things set Landry- French apart: their lower bid and their local connection.

Not only is Landry-French based in Scarborough, but two of the firm’s key personnel, director of preconstruction Mason Rowell and senior project manager Derek Albert, live within a quarter-mile of the site of the new public safety building. Denis Landry, Landry-French president, also lives in town.

“Their interest and knowledge of the project really came through loud and clear in the interview process,” Hall said. “That local connection is really powerful.”

Hall said the Landry-French team made it clear that the construction of the Scarborough Public Safety Building was “an important project for them” and the executive committee saw Landry-French as “qualified, capable and cost competitive.”

Landry-French CEO Kevin French said the business being based in Scarborough and the new public safety building being an important project for the town, “it was a pride thing. We didn’t want to see another (company’s) sign on it.”

He said the company was “thrilled” to be chosen.

“We are very excited to be working on the project. Working in your backyard give you that extra fulfillment,” he said.

Landry-French was recently hired as the construction manager of a new 40,000-square-foot public safety building being constructed for the town of Wells. The company recently finished a project near the Portland International Jetport for Mac Air Group, a private jet tour operator and is working on a $26.6 million project for the Department of Health and Human Services in Augusta, a $25 million project for Colby College in Waterville, as well as a number of condominium projects in the Old Port section of Portland.

A construction manager, Hall said, is brought in early in the process to have a seat at the table as project’s final designs are drafted and to provide feedback about those designs from a construction perspective.

“Our role at this point is to make sure the project stays on track, both in terms of design and budget and making sure the design is something that can be built and can be built efficiently,” French said.

Scarborough has also filled the seat of another individual at the table: that of the owner’s representative. This month, Tom Perkins, of Dirigo Architectural Engineering, was chosen from a field of three finalists for the owner’s representative position.

The owner’s representative, Hall said, serves as the town’s “eyes and ears to make sure the design process is going well and represents our interests throughout.” Dirigo Architectural Engineering, which Hall said “came with high regard” has served as owner’s representative for a number of University of Maine projects, including UMaine- Fort Kent biomass central utility plant and UMaine’s offshore wind laboratory, W2 WindWave Robotics Laboratory and Neville Hall Data Center, as well as other projects throughout the state, including the expansion of the Tyler Technologies building in Yarmouth, which had a ribbon cutting in late January.

“We’ve done a lot of owners representative services over the years,” Perkins said. “We’ve also had some experience with fire stations – the planning, design and construction – so it seemed like a pretty natural fit.”

Dirigo Architectural Engineering has also been chosen by the town to take on the role of clerk of the works, a position also known as the project engineer or project clerk, and oversee change orders, construction schedule and payments. While Perkins serves as owner’s representative, he said Dirigo Architectural Engineering project engineer David Berry will take on the clerk of the works duties, which Perkins said deals with day-today hands-on oversight and quality control of the construction process

The new team met for the first time on Tuesday morning.

With the construction manager and owner’s representative on board, Hall said the building committee is still “sorting through” what sort of role they will play as the project’s design gets finalized and ultimately built. Whatever that role is, the committee will be part of the on-going process.

“There will be some decisions they will be very good at providing for us,” he said.

In December, the town council agreed to extend the role of the building committee until the project is completed and tasked them with providing feedback on scope and cost, as well as look into energy efficiency life cycle costs, consider potential change orders and provide periodic updates to the public about the project’s progress.

French said construction is expected to begin this summer and be completed by December 2019.